July 28 movie: The Spoilers. John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Marlene Dietrich star in an adventure story about gold mining in Nome, Alaska. It's somewhat like Pittsburgh although here Scott is the villain. And he's a true villain, not a good guy at heart who makes bad choices, like Wayne was in Pittsburgh.
Marlene plays a saloon owner who wears amazing belle epoch gowns and a humongous Gibson Girl hairdo. Dietrich insisted on being lit from above, ideally directly over her head. (She had studied herself on film and decided her face looked "like a potato" when lit from any other angle.) Watch her in the movies sometime and you'll see it: the light source is always right above her. But this hairstyle is so huge as to shade her face when the light is above her. It's like a giant hat made of hair. It must have been quite a challenge to light her in this movie.
2 Comments
Dang, I always thought the movie was about some people who can't stand not telling others how movies end.
[Thanks; tip waitress]
Ba-dum-bump!